For programs to access services and types that exist on server, the services and types must be described in a manner that enables a programmer to write programs to access the services and types. One way to provide such description is to provide printed documentation. Such printed documentation, however, requires human intervention to interpret the description.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a standards-based document format that allows for machine descriptions of services and types. Such a description can be used directly in a programming environment. Thus, in a programming environment on a client, for example, a programmer can automatically build language bindings to access services on the server.
In WSDL documents, types can be described in terms of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) data types. The services and types that exist on the server, which may be a Structured Query Language (SQL) server, for example, can be mapped to XML. The types that exist on the client, which may be a programming environment, such as a C# programming environment, for example, can also be mapped into XML. Thus, the server and client can communicate with one another using their respective mappings to XML as translations to and from a common language.
Some server environments map from a programming language environment or “domain” (e.g., C#) into an XML domain. For example, methods for generating WSDL documents from C#, PERL, and other such programming languages are known. There is a need, however, for defining services provided in a database environment. Thus, there is a need for describing database services and types in a WSDL document.